Tanya Holland is an award-winning chef renowned for her modern soul food and inventive take on comfort classics. She has published three critically acclaimed cookbooks: New Soul Cooking (2003), Brown Sugar Kitchen (2014), and Tanya Holland's California Soul (2022). Holland hosted her own cooking shows The Melting Pot Soul Kitchen and Tanya's Kitchen Table, competed on Season 15 of Bravo's Top Chef, and has appeared on shows such as MasterChef and Selena + Chef.
Experience
Tanya Holland held various positions in the restaurant industry prior to making her mark in the kitchen — as a front of house manager, assistant sommelier, and catering manager in New York City. After training in France, she worked her way up the ranks in eateries such as Mesa Grill, The Oyster Bar, and L’Etoile, eventually helming the kitchens at The Delux Café in Boston and The Victory Kitchen in Brooklyn. Holland moved to California to open her first restaurant, The Brown Sugar Kitchen, in Oakland to glowing reviews. It received the coveted Michelin Guide's Bib Gourmand for nine consecutive years and was named among the best barbecue and soul food restaurant by Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure, and Ebony Magazine, among others. In addition to her writing, teaching, and television appearances, Holland hosts the Tanya's Table podcast where she has interviewed such guests as Alice Waters, Samin Nosrat, Carla Hall, Danny Meyer, and Phil Rosenthal.
Education
Tanya Holland holds a bachelor of arts in Russian Language and Literature from the University of Virginia and a Grande Diplôme from La Varenne Ecole de Cuisine.
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